Many sharks and rays are known to breach, leaping fully or partly out of the water. In a recent study, colleagues and I reviewed research on breaching and ranked the most commonly hypothesized functions for it.
We found that removal of external parasites was the most frequently proposed explanation, followed by predators chasing their prey; predators concentrating or stunning their prey; males chasing females during courtship; and animals fleeing predators, such as a ray escaping from a hammerhead shark in shallow water.
